I’ve lost count of the number of comic book adaptions that have popped up in the last few years, but barring The Dark Knight, Hellboy 2 is the one I’ve been waiting for.

I loved Ron Perlman as Hellboy and del Toro’s directing, not to mention his take on Mignola’s world of nutcase Nazis and and Lovecraftian monsters. From the trailer it was quite plain to see that Hellboy 2 would be bigger – at least visually and character-wise, but I was a little worried that the CGI-factor would swallow up everything else.

The story revolves around three pieces of a crown that are broken up in an impressive fairy-tale opening sequence and the pact between man and elf, who split the crown between each other and vow never to combine them and raise the Golden Army – an unstoppable, monstrous army of robots that were created to do very bad things. Prince Nuada (Luke Goss), the elf-king’s son, doesn’t agree with the truce, and after going into exile, returns in the present to reclaim the fragments of the crown and resurrect the Golden Army for himself.

Hellboy 2 is, as far as I’m concerned, a big success and a very enjoyable sequel to a well-rounded piece of cinema. It has fantastic visuals, great action sequences and cool characters. It has also retained the ability never to take itself too seriously, which is important for this type of film. Best of all, the humour is actually funny, so when you’re not being treated to cool fantasy sequences, you can have a giggle with the big red ape and his pals.

I’ve heard some negativity surrounding the drunken sing-song between Hellboy and Abe (Doug Jones). Personally I found this highly amusing and sadly felt I’d rather like to get drunk with the pair (yes, a big red demon and a blue aquatic psychic sometimes feel more accessible than peers). One-liners are as sharp as they were in the original, which helps (like the original) to lift the series above other, bog-standard comic book romps. Characters are built on from the previous adventure – Selma Blair’s character Liz has to deal with pregnancy, and a fiery relationship with Hellboy which they are both finding difficult. Even Abe has a new love interest in the form of Princess Nuala (Anna Walton).  Meanwhile Johann Krauss (Seth MacFarlane) appears on the scene in full, smoky glory to mix things up a little and to tread on Hellboy’s toes in some amusing scenes.

The Bureau’s gone a little bit Men In Black and the brother/sister/father thing (including the drying up skin-factor) is very Blade 2 (a previous del Toro effort, also with Luke Goss), but this can be forgiven as there are some nice, fresh ideas in the movie and some great set-pieces, for instance, the Golden Army themselves and the Elemental’s attack on the city.

If you enjoyed the first movie, I don’t see why you wouldn’t enjoy this, which is bigger, brighter, and a surprisingly welcome departure from the “Hellboy’s cursed destiny” vibe of the first film, which although present, seems to me to take a back seat. Go and see it!

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